The way we communicate has been altered by social media. Small-business owners no longer wonder if they should use social media to promote their business, but instead, they wonder how they should use it.
As a small-business owner, your time is valuable and limited. You lack the time to dedicate to navigating numerous social media platforms throughout the day or the finances to hire a social media specialist.
These limitations are understood by marketing experts, social media specialists, and small-business owners, who have devised ways to collaborate with them rather than opposing them.
The advice they give is straightforward: If you invest in strategic social media marketing, your small business will experience an increase in traffic, improved brand awareness, and enhanced customer satisfaction. To maximize their social media presence, experts follow a step-by-step approach of setting goals and developing strategies.
1. Schedule beyond the 9-to-5
When it feels like there is always insufficient time in the day or workweek to complete all tasks, automation becomes helpful. Instead of manually posting on each platform, you have the option to schedule your social media content.
Christina Hager, who works as the head of social media strategy and distribution at Overflow Storytelling Lab, prefers to plan social media activities in advance.
To ensure a consistent message for your business, it is beneficial to plan your campaigns and posts in advance, allowing them to complement each other and form a cohesive narrative. Hagar suggests the use of an editorial calendar to organize posts and themes, considering the option of employing a marketing intern if financially feasible, as well as utilizing a scheduling tool.
Create an editorial calendar to track what you post
By utilizing an editorial calendar, you can effectively monitor both original and curated content in one central location. Additionally, it facilitates seamless updating and collaboration, which is crucial when social media responsibilities are distributed among your team members. Furthermore, this ensures that you do not unintentionally duplicate or overlook any post content.
Hire an intern or marketing student to do your posting
Firstly, invest your time in formulating a strategy before bringing on board someone who possesses both experience and passion for social media. This individual will be in charge of posting content, generating additional material, and actively participating in the conceptualization of campaigns.
Use a scheduling tool
Hager suggests that her clients adopt the use of social media management software for scheduling posts. She finds it to be highly convenient as it saves a tremendous amount of time. By employing this tool, individuals can allocate dedicated time slots to complete their entire week or even month’s worth of posts in one go.
2. Customize for your target audience
When considering an engaging social media presence, it is important to note that the frequency of your posts is not the only factor. Hager emphasizes that the content you post is equally, if not more, significant. If you lack a strategy and a specific target audience, your efforts on social media will be spread too thin amidst a vast amount of content.
Rather than adding or removing information, Hager suggests that the focus should be on the target audience and establishing a social media presence that intentionally seeks them and communicates in a way they can relate to. Determine the location of your desired group of consumers and leverage social media information; consult Hootsuite reports to identify their preferred platform for engagement.
If your small business sells handmade baby clothes, the most effective use of your energy would be to share information and tips that establish value and trust with new, busy moms. Similarly, if you are attempting to market gear for adventurous travelers, consider the characteristics of that specific demographic and ensure that your content, copy, and images resonate with them.
Utilize Facebook’s exceptional detail targeting capabilities by carefully considering each step and rephrasing the following text. The goal is to maintain the original meaning without introducing new information or removing any existing information. Remember to take advantage of Facebook’s ability to target specific behaviors or interests, including individual job titles.
By understanding your audience and their interests, you can create valuable content for them. Social media marketing platforms usually have features for social listening, which help you monitor audience demographics and their engagement with your content.
3. Cut through the social media noise
After identifying your target audience, how can a small business stand out amid the immense amount of social media activity on platforms like Facebook, which currently has 2.23 billion monthly active users as of Q2 2018? It seems like a challenging task to attract the attention of potential customers in such a crowded space.
According to Dean DeCarlo, the president of Mission Disrupt, a company specializing in advertising and marketing, a social media strategy has a higher chance of being successful when it incorporates genuine content. It is advisable for companies to concentrate on creating unique content that revolves around the community they are associated with.
If you are a small business, you can benefit from having a close, personal connection with your customers. Utilize Facebook Live video and Instagram Stories as a means to keep your customers and community informed and engaged. It’s important to keep in mind that you don’t have to be a professional designer or video editor to create impactful content. There are budget-friendly graphic designer platforms and video editing tools available that can assist even beginners in producing impressive creations.
4. Employ both organic and paid strategies.
When considering whether to develop an unpaid organic social media strategy or a paid advertising-based social strategy, it is recommended to pursue both options simultaneously.
Each type of social tactic serves a distinct purpose. Organic social tactics play a role in building an online presence and interacting with current customers, while paid social tactics are useful for reaching fresh audiences and advertising products/services.
Small businesses considered organic social and paid social as the two most effective marketing tactics for reaching customers last year, precisely because they possess unique strengths.
Reply promptly to your target spectators.
Engaging consistently and promptly with audiences on social media is of utmost importance.
The top thing brands can do on social to prompt consumers to purchase, according to a survey of consumers, is to be responsive. This is ranked higher than actions like offering promotions, providing informational content, and being entertaining.
1. Capture people’s attention by using visual content. 2. Encourage people to interact with visual materials. 3. Employ visual content to involve individuals. 4. Utilize visual elements to engage people.
What types of content should you share on social media?
The suitable combination depends on the audiences and social networks you are targeting, so there is no definitive answer. Marketing accounting services on LinkedIn necessitates a different approach compared to promoting baked goods on Instagram.
The research reveals an overarching theme: individuals have a strong preference for visual content, which is why images/infographics have become the most popular type of content shared by small businesses on social media.
7. Avoid overwhelming your followers with excessive content.
Once you have a grasp of social media, including building an audience and creating a marketing engine, it can be tempting to overwhelm your followers with constant messaging.
According to the research findings, it is advised not to engage in this behavior.
According to a consumer survey, the primary reason for individuals unfollowing brands on social media is an excess of promotional messages. It is important to note that this does not imply that brands should always refrain from sharing information, as there may be occasions where a brand has significant information to convey. However, it is crucial to consider that there is a threshold where content, particularly overtly promotional content, transitions from being beneficial to becoming bothersome.
Ensure that you protect your reputation with careful attention.
Social media has become the primary platform for small businesses to monitor their online reputations, surpassing channels like search and review sites. This shift is primarily due to the increasing association between a company’s reputation and its presence on social media.
As consumers’ reliance on social media to discover small businesses and share their experiences, both positive and negative, continues to grow, it becomes crucial for businesses to protect their reputation on all platforms. Neglecting to be conscientious in this regard can have consequences that affect every aspect of your business.
9. Keep in mind that social requires a considerable amount of time.
Do you ever feel like your social media efforts are consuming a significant amount of your time? You’re not the only one. A majority (52%) of small and medium-sized businesses express that organic social media is a major time drain, while 13% state that paid social media also takes up a significant portion of their time.
With the increasing complexity of social media, it is improbable that it will require less time from small businesses. Nevertheless, it is crucial to remember that this effort is not in vain, as it is a platform that holds greater importance in people’s lives.
Make use of tools in order to enhance your endeavors.
Small businesses are unlikely to reduce the amount of time they spend on social media in the near future. However, they can make the time they spend on the channel more efficient.
How can this be done? By making use of technology.
Small businesses have already adopted social media management as their primary marketing tool, but slightly more than half (51%) of them have not yet embraced these platforms. As more businesses start using social media, it is expected that the effectiveness and measurability of social media marketing will increase.
11. Measure what you can act on
Once you have established these reliable methods, the final query to consider is: Was it successful? What methods can be used to monitor and evaluate the impact of your social media actions?
Nathalie Couet, the manager of communications, marketing, and partnerships at Dashthis.com, emphasized the significance of distinguishing between vanity metrics and actionable metrics. Vanity metrics refer to statistics that may appear favorable but lack practical use, such as the number of likes on a post.
Things such as are measured by Couet and other marketing experts.
Engagement, when viewed in relation to follower numbers.
The count of likes.
The number of shares or retweets.
Comment count
A crucial distinction lies in the fact that followers/subscribers actively request more of your content, whereas likes on a particular post do not imply the same. It is equally important to set goals and create benchmarks for yourself.
12. Keep making investments consistently over a period of time.
The key secret to social media success, which is not really a secret, is investment.
In order to build successful organic and paid strategies, it is important to dedicate consistent time and financial resources. The effectiveness and sophistication of your efforts will only improve through ongoing experimentation and optimization. This is why 63% of small businesses plan to allocate more budget for social media this year – the need to delve deeper into this platform.
Side notes
As your social media following expands, it will offer you the chance to directly engage with your customers. Seize this opportunity to impress your customers with personalized attentiveness and promptness.
